


Parker fell asleep.

by M_Logolepsy



Category: Sugar Pine 7 RPF
Genre: Angst, Family Reunions, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Major Character Undeath, au where parker finds steven first, canon up as far as Roller Skate '78, does it count as rpf if they're not really their real identities?, mostly - Freeform, or:, parker has two names now because we found out his last name ten minutes ago
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 13:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12682890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_Logolepsy/pseuds/M_Logolepsy
Summary: Parker wakes up, crawls out of his grave, and wanders home. James, Steven, and Cib aren't sure why they keep earning second chances from him but they're always glad they do.





	Parker fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this fic the moment we saw Parker's grave. Originally, I thought I'd have more time to make this what I wanted it to be before Parker was back for real, but then Roller Skate '78 came out the same day I was finishing it and I said fuck it and finished it anyway because I really like it. In my dreams, Jamie doesn't see Parker but he wanders home to the boy trio anyways. 
> 
> please come yell at me about sugar pine 7 all my friends hate me for trying to get them into it: fricknerd.tumblr.com

Parker fell asleep about three hours after he’d shown up, sprawled across Steven’s couch when he came home after filming for REACT. He was dirty and the gash on his cheek was bright and bloody again, but thankfully, this time, his eyes weren’t staring blankly, unblinkingly, ahead. That was a small mercy, Steven had supposed. He didn’t understand why he wasn’t totally decomposed. It had been months, but some weird shit was always going on in their lives. Of course, their best friend couldn’t die normally. He had groaned, already feeling the sick regret and heartbreak sneaking up his throat that he always felt when he remembered Parker was dead. He’d bit back his breakdown and picked up the phone to call James. 

“Hey, get over here. Parker’s body is back in my house,” He told him the second he picked up. 

“Oh, fuck me, dude, again?!” James yelled. “We made peace with fucking Jeremy, why is this still happening?” 

“Steve?” 

Steven froze. Slowly, he turned to look up at the body on the couch. The body was looking back at him. 

Parker had shifted anxiously. “Steve? I’m sorry, I know I crashed in your house without asking, but I woke up in a grave and I don’t have my phone and I just have this massive headache and I didn’t know where to go, and my house was so far... I’m really sorry, I can leave if you want me to, I just-” 

Steven really wasn’t the type of person to impulsively hug someone, but Parker had died- or at least temporarily died- thinking that no one gave a shit about him. He made an exception to this rule. 

“Steve? Steve? Dude, what’s going on?” James called over the phone. 

“Parker’s alive, get over here now.” 

And that’s how they’d gotten to where they are now, with Parker dressed in an old pair of Steven’s pajamas, freshly showered and sleeping peacefully while James and Steven flanked either side of him. Neither the orphan/war veteran or the socially awkward boyman are really naturals to showing affection, but they are both doing their best to try and make up for their fuck ups. (“Or, maybe,” James suggests later. “to save our asses from getting murdered? He could be a zombie.” 

“He’s not a zombie,” Steven tells him. “Zombies don’t apologize for inconveniencing us with their death.”) Besides, all three of them are touch-starved and awkward. No point in being shy about it. 

James shakes his head. “I can’t believe this.” 

“That he’s alive?” 

“No, that he’s been dead for three months and the first thing he does is fall asleep.” 

Steven frowns. “He said he was exhausted right before you got here. I think he dug out of his grave himself and then just… wandered here.” 

“Yeah, I can’t believe that he’s alive, either. What the fuck is our lives, dude?” 

“God, I don’t know. I mean, he was possessed that one time and Alfredo fucking exists, so at this point, anything’s possible.” 

Parker shifts slightly in his sleep, sighing and leaning his head on Steven’s shoulder. James stares at him, transfixed on his chest. He is totally mystified. 

“Remember when it first happened?” James begins, pausing to make sure Parker is still asleep before continuing. “When he was laying there, in a pool of his own-” 

“Stop,” Steven says as quickly as he can. “Stop, we just got him back.” 

“But when he was?” James continues anyway. “When we’d finally got there and saw it? I was staring at his chest and I couldn’t shake that this was so wrong. That it couldn’t be Parker because he was too still. And now here he is, laying right here with us, and I can’t believe it’s him because he’s moving.” 

Steven doesn’t say anything for a long moment. He knows if he was narrating this, he’d have something meaningful to say about wasting friendships and second chances to make things right. The camera isn’t rolling now, though, and he knows he only finds profound words long after the event is over. 

Finally, he says, “Figures Parker would wait until we’d finally gotten rid of his dead ass before coming back to life.” 

The two laugh as quietly as they can, hoping they don’t wake their newly-revived friend. They should be exhausted, but without saying, they both know that they’re not getting any sleep that night. Without any real dedication to follow the train of thought, Steven thinks that he finally understands why those “soldiers reuniting with their family” videos always hit the trending page. 

“I can’t believe you’re having a boys night without me!” Cib’s voice suddenly shatters the small peace, first muffled by the door and then only by a cloud of vapor as he walks into the house.

James stands up carefully, sliding away from Parker as gently as he can before hurrying to meet Cib. “Dude, leave.” 

“Ohh, ‘rude sleeve’, ohhh,” Cib mocks, taking another hit from his vape and pushing past James. “I tracked you baby boy, and I knew you were over here fussing your busses and dustling- James! What are you...” 

James tries to block him out, but Cib pushes past him anyways and sees Parker, still sound asleep on Steven’s arm. The sleeping man shifts but doesn’t awaken, instead of stretching himself out in towards the absence where James was. Vapor slowly drifts out of Cib’s mouth. It’s gentle and lackadaisical movement stands in stark contrast to the terrified and sudden widening of Steven’s eyes and the quick and panicked steps James takes to stand in between him and Cib. Cib’s eyes were empty and distant, staring through James to where Parker lay. “He’s alive.” 

“Cib, stay back,” James warns. 

A grin cracks Cib’s face and he meets James’ eyes. “He’s alive, dude! Of course, he is, I did- We didn’t kill anyone!” 

No one answers him. James doesn’t move, staying in front of him, totally unsure how to react. 

“We didn’t kill anyone!” 

“Cib, he showed up here covered in dirt. He crawled out of his grave,” Steven tells him. 

Cib takes a hit off his vape. “Maybe Jeremy buried him alive again!” 

Anger flashes in James’ eyes and he lunges forward, trying to snatch the vape away from him. 

“Dude, fuck off!” 

“Will you stop vaping and take one goddamn thing seriously?” James shouts at him. “Parker’s alive, and we don’t know how, but you kicked the shit out of him and we almost lost him forever. We fucking hid him for you! We let you get away with it, so just fucking- Just cut the shit!” 

Cib opens and closes his mouth. He raises the vape and put it back down again, then fidgeting with the stopper. Steven tries not to think about how the coil is definitely burned out. The room hangs still, as if they are quiet enough, Parker’s heartbeat can echo around the room. Then suddenly Cib rushes forward. He throws down the vape, not giving one fuck that the piece shattered, and pushes himself through James. The fake warrior tries to hold him back but struggles, so Steven shifts Parker off of him as gently as he can and rushed to grab Cib too. The three of them collapse to the floor. Cib falls to his knees, Steven and James holding him by either side, just a few feet away from where Parker is still sleeping on the couch. 

“God, he sleeps like the dead,” Steven comments.

James barks out a laugh. “Dude, no.” 

“Don’t protect him from me,” Cib cries out. “I’m not- I didn’t- I- I’m-” 

“We know.” 

Cib shakes his head. “No, you don’t. You think I don’t care about anything, that I’d want to…” 

“No, we get it,” Steven tells him. “It was just-” 

“You don’t get it!” Cib repeats angrily. “I love her so much. I want to be with her forever, and so did he, and he’s so much kinder than me and I didn’t want- I knew she’d figure it out, and the video… the video it just seemed like she had, and I couldn’t- but he’s one of my best friends. I have so few of those, and I fucking blew it, I killed him because- because I didn’t trust her or him and that’s- that’s-” His chest heaves miserably, tears rolling down his face as he sobs out, “That’s so fucked, dude.” 

His two friends finally let go of his arms, James wrapping an arm around him as he cries. “You didn’t mean to kill him,” Steven told him. 

“But I did,” Cib admits for the first time ever. “I’m a murderer, and I wouldn’t fucking admit it because it just confirmed everything I already knew. I just wanted to worthy of her love. Or any of yours, for that matter.” 

James scoffs. “Oh, fuck off, of course you’re worthy of our love.” 

“I made you help me hide our best friend’s dead body.” 

As if they managed to forget he was there, the three of them looks up at Parker. He is still sound asleep. Somehow. His hair is still damp, despite the large wet spot on Steven’s shoulder from where he put his head. The bags under his eyes are more pronounced and the wound from where Cib had hit him is bleeding again. It seemed to have healed, but it had opened a little bit again, gently oozing red. Best of all, his chest was rising and falling peacefully. 

“You know,” Steven says, letting the words hang in the air. “It figures he’d still come back to us. No matter how much we fuck up, he was always there for us.” 

James shakes his head. “We can’t fuck this up this time.” 

“I won’t,” Cib says more seriously than he has said anything in months. 

“We won’t,” James corrects. 

“We won’t,” Steven repeats. He tries to think he doesn’t sound that desperate. 

Parker finally stirs, blinking and sitting up slowly. His eyes wander around the room in a panic, finally settling on the trio in front of him and relaxing. The relaxation only lasts a moment, though, as he realizes that Cib is there. “Cib,” He gasps. 

“It’s okay, I can leave,” He tells him, disconnecting himself from Steven and James and going to stand. 

“Please don’t,” Parker says. 

Cib’s eyes widen. 

Parker has always had a way of displaying his misery with his entire face. This is still true now, as while he doesn’t cry, his eyes alone are so full of hurt and regret that Cib wishes he could take back everything he ever did all over again. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to- I’m so sorry.” 

Cib sighs, the noise shivering in his throat. He still stands, but instead of exiting the house he carefully sits next to Parker on the couch. He puts his head on his shoulder and whispers, “Please don’t say sorry. I thought those were going to be your last words.” 

James rolls his eyes and sits on the other side of Parker. “Glisten, glisten, can we please just all go to sleep? It’s like fucking four am. We’re gonna have to do so much shit tomorrow morning.” 

The pair on the couch laugh in spite of the tears shed. Steven thinks that he’s a liar. He’s sitting there, staring up at the three of them, and he knows exactly how he’d narrate the moment. He thinks he’d say something about how his mom used to talk about how karma always comes back to you, and how Parker was the karma they never earned. It’s so easy for them to talk shit about him and pick on him, and that’s because he was always open about how he feels in a way none of them were ever able to be. James always hid behind his Water Warrior status, and when that melted away, he just hid. Cib joked and vaped until who he was and how he felt was so misty that he escaped from view. And he… Well, he’d hide behind his words and insults until the day he died. Parker hadn’t done any of that. He’d worn his heart on his sleeve and spoke how he felt and they’d literally killed him for it. It was fucked, and they’d spent so long trying to cover up what they’d done that they’d never even talked about how much they missed him. How it felt like part of them was missing. How much it hurt to know that they’d all played a part in ending the life of the best person in their little family. Whatever this was, however, they’d gotten Parker back, they weren’t going to fuck it up this time. Or, more accurately, they were going to try really hard to not fuck it up this time. He just really hoped they’d manage. 

“Hey, gimp boy, get over here,” Cib called, standing and patting the seat where he’d just been sitting. 

Steven obliged with an incredulous shake of his head, and Cib stretches across the three of their laps. “You’re the worst,” Steven tells him. 

He grins. “Yeah.” 

As Parker laughs and then, later, falls back to sleep in the middle of their conversation about Alfredo’s sexual harassment lawsuit impending from Rooster Teeth. Despite himself, Steven thought that maybe, just maybe, they’d pull this off.


End file.
